Marketing and advertising our books and products is a big part of what we do and what our authors expect. Catalogs, brochures, ads in magazines and newspapers, and other forms of print-based materials have always been significant parts of our promotional efforts. These marketing materials are necessary to support our products, but we also know that there is always room for improvement when it comes to sustainability.

With that end in mind, we’ve adopted a smart approach where we include sustainability as a factor in our marketing and advertising decisions. The advent of digital marketing provides alternatives to traditional paper-based marketing, and we take advantage of digital marketing and advertising initiatives over print-based approaches whenever feasible. Both our Trade and College businesses have committed to replacing the bulk of our conventional paper catalogs and sales aids with digital alternatives by 2013. And our trade business has already released the first of these digital catalogs that replace the ink-on paper versions.

Print-based marketing and advertising will probably never go away, but we are making great progress in approaching these necessary efforts in a more sustainable way.